Despite the wide acceptance of percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) ana intravascular stenting for treating patients with peripheral atherosclerotic lesions, these techniques suffer some drawbacks which limit their overall clinical success. A high rate of restenosis remains the major complication of PTA and intravascular stenting procedures. The overall goal of this research is to design, develop and test in vivo a novel collagen-based endoprosthesis for reducing the rate of post-PTA restenosis. In the preliminary studies, acute and chronic in vivo testing of an endoprosthesis prototype was conducted using a rabbit aorta model. The results showed that the endoprosthesis prototype had excellent hemocompatibility and induced minimal inflammatory response. During the phase I, we plan to improve the design and fabrication of the endoprosthesis prototype and conduct a feasibility testing in a canine iliac artery model. In the phase II, we will extend the study to include sclerotic canine and porcine arteries and evaluate the long term effectiveness of the endoprosthesis in reducing the rate of restenosis. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: There were estimated to be more than 150,000 percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) procedures performed to treat patients with peripheral atherosclerotic lesions in the U.S. in 1995 alone. The occurrence of late restenosis typically lead to reinterventions that result in a significant increase of the total cost of patient care. If the proposed endoprosthesis device functions well, a 5% reduction of the restenosis rate can be translated into a savings of more than $100 million dollars a year in the associated healthcare cost.